Research overview

I believe close relationships are best understood as a coordinated process. To understand these intricate interactions, I examine the ways we share in experiences — both good and bad — with those closest to us. Much of this work centers the role stress plays in relational processes, but I also examine how we can thrive through close relationships. 

In much of my current work, I have focused on how co-rumination — a social emotion regulation strategy whereby two individuals perseverate on negative emotions or problems with one another — impacts affective, relational, and behavioral outcomes. In addition to examining co-rumination and general stress processes within close relationships, I have also studied conflict, physiological synchrony, shared laughter, long-distance relationships, and more. My work is fundamentally integrative, and I draw from a multitude of psychological sub-disciplines to answer these questions.

What unites these projects is a desire to understand how we show up for others, work together to regulate complex emotions, and build meaningful connections. To do this, I capitalize on dyadic methods, daily diaries, longitudinal designs, and psychophysiological methods to understand how relationship partners interact with one another, and how these interactions influence one’s own experiences, a partner’s experiences, and the unit as a whole. My OSF page can be found here.